I used to be a lot quieter about not believing- hell, ten years ago I remember talking to people about religion and trying to believe. But it just never happened, I never saw the light or whatever, and continued to think that all this invisible Jesus stuff was just a load of crap. But I was quiet about it. I really didn’t (and to a large extent still don’t) see the need to antagonize people about their deeply held religious beliefs. You can’t argue with people about it, because none of it is based on logic or reason, most of it is so ingrained in who they are because they’ve been instructed to believe since they were born and spent their lifetime going through the rituals, and I just see no point in being a dick about it. I mean, how do you argue with someone that sprinkling water on a newborn in a ceremony isn’t actually going to have an impact on the kid? How do you argue that no, you really don’t have to give up something for six weeks every spring to be a good person. How do you tell someone that a two ounce shot of wine really isn’t the blood of some guy who allegedly lived several thousand years ago? You just can’t, so why bother and why be a jerk about it?

But sometimes the state goes further. Not content with crowding out alternative forms of common effort, it presents its rivals an impossible choice: Play by our rules, even if it means violating the moral ideals that inspired your efforts in the first place, or get out of the community-building business entirely.

This is exactly the choice that the White House has decided to offer a host of religious institutions — hospitals, schools and charities — in the era of Obamacare. The new health care law requires that all employer-provided insurance plans cover contraception, sterilization and the morning-after (or week-after) pill known as ella, which can work as an abortifacient. A number of religious groups, led by the American Catholic bishops, had requested an exemption for plans purchased by their institutions. Instead, the White House has settled on an exemption that only covers religious institutions that primarily serve members of their own faith. A parish would be exempt from the mandate, in other words, but a Catholic hospital would not.

Ponder that for a moment. In effect, the Department of Health and Human Services is telling religious groups that if they don’t want to pay for practices they consider immoral, they should stick to serving their own co-religionists rather than the wider public. Sectarian self-segregation is O.K., but good Samaritanism is not. The rule suggests a preposterous scenario in which a Catholic hospital avoids paying for sterilizations and the morning-after pill by closing its doors to atheists and Muslims, and hanging out a sign saying “no Protestants need apply.”

Oh, go blow it out your ass. You know why the government is getting involved in this? Because if they don’t, there won’t be other options, because you god-bothering cretins are busy doing stuff like this:

The Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation has announced that it will stop supporting lifesaving breast cancer screening for low-income and underserved women at Planned Parenthood health centers — including those in West Virginia.

It’s a deeply disappointing decision — made even more alarming because politically motivated groups and individuals determined to undermine women’s access to care appear to have successfully intimidated the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation to withdraw this critical support.

Over the past five years, Komen funds have enabled Planned Parenthood health centers to provide nearly 170,000 clinical breast exams and referrals for more than 6,400 mammograms. These cancer detection and prevention programs saved the lives of women who often had nowhere else to turn for care.

But when anti-choice groups began criticizing the Komen Foundation for partnering with Planned Parenthood, the foundation ended its support for Planned Parenthood health centers. We know our opponents put their ideology over women’s health and lives. What we never expected is that an ally like the Komen Foundation would choose to listen to them.

Again, I’m not naturally inclined to be antagonistic towards religion. My parents are both religious and are definite believers. I like Sundays off, I like the Easter and Christmas break, I don’t care if we have to do silly things like pray before certain events (I can just think about other things while they babble), it doesn’t bother me that In God We Trust and other such statements are everywhere in public life, and so on. I’m not some crazed reactionary on the issue.

But from where I stand these days, the only thing I see religion doing in the public sector is gay bashing and telling women, mostly poor and desperate and in deplorable financial and personal situations, what to do with their bodies. I see busybodies deciding what drugs they can dispense to which customers, or deciding that they don’t have to issue a marriage license because of some petty deity that I don’t believe in told them to hate their fellow citizens and ignore the law. In a country in dire financial straits but still spending billions and billions of dollars on education, I see religious folks actively and openly working to make our schoolkids dumber. I see them shooting people who provided a medical procedure, and I see others rummaging through people’s personal lives to find out who hasn’t lived up the word of God. I see glassy-eyed fools running for President claiming that vaccines that save lives actually cause cancer, or that if you get raped and are pregnant, you should just lie back and think of Jeebus and make the best of a bad situation. In fact, everywhere you look these days, if Christianity or religion is getting a mention, it means something ugly is happening and someone somewhere is being victimized, marginalized, or otherwise abused. Go read some of the arguments against integration and you’ll see the same bible verses used today against homosexuals. Fifty years from now, they’ll be recycling them again to trash someone else they don’t like or who isn’t good enough for them.

So, I’m sorry, Ross. I don’t give a shit about your invisible Jeebus, I don’t care if under the iron hand of Obamacare there might be a little more access to contraceptives, and until you and the rest of your godbothering pals get your act together and stop being a burden and cancer on society, I really don’t care what you think. Deal with it.